You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

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24 days without baseball. By this point my mind finally understands that baseball season is over. This isn’t an inordinately lengthy All-Star break or some sort of weird mid-season hiatus. There is no more baseball until spring. My mind understands, but it still does not accept.

Evenings are the hardest. During the day, I am working, just as I do during the season, and sometimes have time to catch Hot Stove or read other news over lunch. That’s not so very different, really. But in the evenings, when all of the have tos are over and it’s time to settle down and relax…eeek, there is just so much extra time now! I have a few non-baseball shows I like. Top Shot is over for the season, but Castle is fun with a lot of good quips about writing and sly book and movie references. I am infatuated with Grimm right now. It’s quirky and clever. Hell on Wheels is so far a more than adequate westerns fix in a sadly post-Deadwood world. And there are a few others. Food Network and the like. But that’s, what? An hour every other evening or so? Occasionally a little more? My mind is temporarily satisfied, then the brief distraction is over, it grows restless and the impatient channel surfing begins in search of a fix that simply does not exist:

And so on. What on Earth do people do with all of this extra time?! I’ve filled it with movies. I’ve filled it with books. Two weeks ago, I filled several evenings making pickles. This week Seth and I are filling the time scouring our house from top to bottom and cooking, cooking, cooking. We host Thanksgiving for our combined families each year (just the two of us and both sets of parents this year though) and we enjoy making it a completely from scratch affair. But that’s this week and before. Whatever will I do next week? 24 days without baseball and it’s clear this blogger needs more offseason hobbies, stat.

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Funny story of the week…okay, of my week at least:

My Pilates instructor is a heck of a nice lady and an excellent instructor, especially from the standpoint of sports and dance conditioning or physical therapy. Her husband is a baseball fanatic, while she knows little to nothing about the sport. It’s just not her thing. To illustrate this point, she told us about a chat with her husband a few years back.

He had asked about two of her clients, a husband and wife, whom she giving private lessons to at the time. And she told him: Oh yeah, Mark used to play baseball. I think their last name is McGwire? He has a lot of Cardinals stuff. I mean a lot. Have you heard of him?

Needless to say, yes, her husband had heard of him.

I burst out laughing all over again just typing this at the thought of what her husband’s expression must have looked like. For the foreseeable future, “He has a lot of Cardinals stuff” is Seth’s and my favorite way of saying someone missed the point.

Because in the course of any season, regardless of how well your team is or is not doing, it’s going to happen. Several times. Well, if you’re me and it’s the Angels doing the sucking, you just keep right on watching. Call it misplaced optimism. Call it “fan”aticism carried to masochistic degree. Call it a factor of being raised on SoCal baseball where, truly, more so that for any other teams in the majors there is no lead so large that every now and then it can’t be overcome…or given up for that matter. Call it whatever you like, but if I’ve started watching the game, be it at the ballpark or on the television, even on delay, then I’m going to finish it — root, root, root for my guys or at least show solidarity by sitting tight through the evening death watch, as it were.

Fortunately, this evening I accidentally saw the end of the game. Not knowing the end of an east coast game while you’re waiting for your husband to come home to start said game on delay when you blog…and read everyone else’s blogs…and watch MLB tonight…and, and, and, you get the general idea…on the night your team decides to blow goats two days after pitching a no-hitter? It’s not possible. Seth knew the outcome before he got home too. I won’t give up on a train wreck once it’s started, but I also don’t believe that fandom demands seeking one out when I already know the gorey depths and bloody extent of the of the carnage.

So, what do you do when the game just plain sucks? Either in lieu of watching it or after it’s over?

Change the channel. Yep. Pick up that remote and put something else on. Depending on your personality, another game might be just the ticket, or it might drive you into greater fits of depression. Sometimes something completely different is a better idea. Watch a movie. Drool over Food Network. Catch up on some of the April and May episodes of favorite TV series you abandoned on the DVR once the baseball season started. One word of advice, though. Watching SportsCenter, Quick Pitch, or the like immediately after your team choked and hearing the talking heads not just speak ill of the dead, but trash talk the corpse during the autopsy isn’t therapy. It’s the sports fan equivalent of drunk dialing an ex-lover while you’re still raw from a recent break up. Sure, you think you’re going to achieve some measure of closure, but no. It’s a trap. …or so I’ve heard…

Go to the Movies. Get out of the house and lose yourself in someone else’s story for a few hours. After Joel Pinero’s Post Oakland Debacle, Debacle Part II: This Time it’s in Cleveland, we went to go see Captain Abs…er…America. *Sigh.* Is this geek girl heaven? No ma’am. It’s just the first preview for the Avengers movie in 2012. *Sigh again* Really, Captain America was fun, and it had a neat, knowing WWII recruitment poster come to life look to it, but it was worth it for that preview alone.

Sadly, sometimes stronger measures in this arena are required. Cheesy, cheesier, so bad it’s good, and occasionally even just plain bad movies have their uses. Yes, there was a game so bad a few weeks ago that we actually went to see Transformers III. Our rationalizations? Let someone else pay for the air conditioning for a few hours. Pretty explosions in 3-D are therapeutic. And, really, the game might look better in comparison. We were mostly right.

Curl Up with a Good Book. If you’re not a fan of the printed word, no worries. Some people juggle geese and all that. But if you are, this is an excellent strategy. Brain vacation! Cruise around in Crowley’s ill fated Bentley or Harry Dresden’s blue beetle. Visit Middle Earth or 221B Baker Street. Attend Woland’s Walpurgis Night Midnight Ball. And return to reality when your desire to punch walls over the game has receded to mere annoyance.

Ummm…it’s called alcohol. Feeling the need for something a bit more mind-numbing than my previous suggestions? The main benefit of this time honored coping strategy is that you don’t have to wait until after the game to begin self-medicating. Wine. Beer. Bourbon. Vodka. Be the reason the rum is gone. Heck, get fancy and do catastrophe themed shots like flaming drambuie. And it’s versatile too! If your team starts to rally, your spirit drenched activities can flip the switch from wake to celebratory revels faster than Peter Bourjos goes from first to home plate. And if you haven’t had the pleasure of watching the lad this season, that’s pretty damn fast.

Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Say no more. Personally, I think this should be a frequent go-to post game strategy regardless of the score. A great pick me up after a terrible game. A fantastic celebration after a good game. It’s the little black dress of cope-age.

Blog. Put fingers to key board and rant, whine and snark away. Oh, come on. You know you were going to do it anyway. Why not get all of the ranting out of the way during or immediately after the game when it has the most direct therapeutic value. If raw emotions – or perhaps having, ahem, combined this option with one of the others – adversely affect the quality of your prose, it’s not like you actually have to post it. Of course, that’s never stopped me before.😉

And if none of this is effective, well, you know you’re going to get right back on that horse with the next game to cheer again. How can you not? Your cure is only a win away. And your relapse? Well, best not to talk about that. But you might as well keep this list handy, you know, just in case.

A final decision regarding Kaz came even sooner than I thought. On Tuesday, the date of my last post, Angels GM Tony Reagins and former Angels GM Bill Stoneman attended a Salt Lake City Bees game to assess Scott Kazmir’s performance and it was terrible. Six earned runs on five hits, three walks and one hit batsman in 1.2 innings terrible. Wednesday morning, the Angels put Kaz on waivers with the intention of unconditionally releasing him if he remains unclaimed. While I’m sad that a young pitcher who had a lot of early success lost all speed and control and seemingly can’t regain it, I think this was a good decision. The Angels have been patient, but it was time to release him. More than time.

However, I had not anticipated the rumors that the Mets are considering claiming Kaz or signing him after his release. I suppose it makes sense, if it is indeed anything more than a rumor. Kaz was the Mets draft pick. Maybe they think they can get him back in the proper headspace to pitch like he used to again? If they can, more power to them and best wishes to all involved, but I don’t see any improvement happening for a very long time if ever.

Tyler Chatwood

Mike Scioscia is taking advantage of this off day to adjust the starting rotation slightly, flipping Dan Haren and Tyler Chatwood’s starts in order to push Chatwood back and give him a little more rest. The Angels are starting to monitor Chatwood’s innings count and do not want to see it climb much over 170 innings for the season. Future off days are likely to be used in a similar fashion. I think the Angels should use the innings count as a guideline and monitor how Chatwood himself seems to be performing and how his arm is wearing through those innings more than a setting a strict numerical guideline. There is ample anecdotal evidence both for and against such handling of rookie pitchers and I really think that in the end the personality, physical makeup and style of pitching of the individual are what determines if such an innings limit is beneficial or detrimental in the long run.

Moneyball Trailer!

The Moneyball trailer is up, and included below. It passed the goosebumps test for both my husband and me, and after seeing it I am jonesing for the movie release even more than before. Goosebumps test you ask? I tend to get goosebumps whenever I see something I love done beautifully, wonderfully right, such a movie adaptation of a book I adored that absolutely nails the book. Thus trailers must pass the goosebumps test in order to ensure my complete anticipation. The trailer for the Shawshank Redemption where I could tell exactly what it was they had adapted from second one when the warden slaps the bible on the table? The scene from the Watchmen trailer where Jon Osterman becomes Dr. Manhattan? The first glimpse of the Ents in the Two Towers trailer? Or, more recently, pretty much every split second flash in the American remake of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which I was planning on passing on as unnecessary until I saw the trailer)? Killer goosebump generators all.

So, Moneyball the movie. Is it going to contain factual inaccuracies, oversimplifications and overly romanticized details? Yes. Will some scenes frustrate the historically knowledgeable baseball fan? More than likely. Will it leave some non-baseball fans with the mistaken impression that the Oakland A’s have gone on to sweep the division time and time again? Actually, I have some hopes on this front. Aaron Sorkin did work the modern consequences of Charlie Wilson’s War into the end of the movie in a poignant way, so maybe not. But, alas, it is possible.

However, will Moneyball include Aaron Sorkin’s typically gorgeous dialog waxing poetic about one of my favorite subjects? Absolutely. And this, more than anything else, is the reason I am dying to see this movie. The baseball equivalent of the ‘Two Cathedrals’ soliloquy, the “May we have it back please” debate sarcasm, or Gust Avrakotes’ rant? I’m getting chills just thinking about it. Old baseball scouts and other staff discussing how they first fell in love with the game (the ‘how did I get here’ speech being a Sorkin staple)? Oh. Yes. Please. …And the by now de rigueur Gilbert and Sullivan reference? I have absolutely no idea how Sorkin is going to work one into a baseball movie, but somehow I am sure he will manage. (Yes, Seth. They’re all about duty. ;) )

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